Between Us and the Moon - Rebecca Maizel Page 0,66
street lamps, his expression is dark, brooding.
“Where are we walking?” I dare to ask.
He stops and runs one hand over his hair. “I don’t know. Do you want to go anywhere with me?”
“You know I do,” I say, and the frown is still set on Andrew’s face.
“No,” he says and shoves his hand in his pocket again. “I don’t.”
“Can we please talk? I want to explain,” I say. “I know it sounded horrible.”
We walk in silence away from Main Street. Just as I turn my back, the brass band warms up. With a glance down the long suburban street, the glitter of the red, white, and blue tinsel that circles the gazebo winks under the streetlight. I want to run backward, erasing everything that just happened, but I know, the universe knows, that time travel is not possible.
Andrew keeps walking and the conductor starts the festivities. In their red uniforms and blue caps, they are dots at the end of the street now. I am dying for the music to start so it fills the silence.
“Hip hip!” the band announcer cries.
“Hidey-ho!” the crowd returns. They do this three times and as I turn the corner, Lighthouse Beach comes into view. The band begins, but the brass is muffled by the waves and wind.
Andrew keeps his distance. Good. It’ll be easier to take when he breaks up with me. I got through Tucker, and I can get through this.
Except, this is my fault and I need Andrew in a way I didn’t need Tucker. We share something deeper, real.
Once we get to the beach parking lot, he leans his hands on a wall that separates the asphalt from the dunes. About fifty or sixty feet below, the waves crash again and again. Andrew looks out at the ocean. The sunset is behind us because this beach faces east. The sky is a twilight blue, almost lavender, like on our first date.
I want to spit or slap myself. Either one will do.
The waves swell and crash and the moon is low on the horizon. It’s been almost three weeks since Tucker broke up with me so the moon is nearly waxing crescent again. It’s amazing how much and how fast things change. I would do anything to make the boy next to me even look in my direction.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” I explain, but my voice is very quiet.
“It didn’t even sound like you,” Andrew says. We both don’t dare to raise our voices to a normal speaking level. Even though the band is a half mile back, the music swells through the opening ragtime number. “Is that you? I mean, the real you?” he asks.
“The real me?”
“A girl who would say that about me behind my back.”
“I like you so much,” I say. I clear my throat because I can hear the panic and desperation in my voice. “I wish I could express how much. And it’s surprising me because I’m not usually in this situation.”
He finally looks at me and the furrow between his eyebrows makes shame flare in my stomach. I’ve never hurt anyone. I can only imagine how Tucker felt when he came to break up with me. It took me ages to understand what he was trying to say.
“What do you mean? You’re not usually in this situation?” he asks.
All of my excuses sound so ridiculous and childish. I want to kick something.
A couple of cars pull up to the line of spaces overlooking Lighthouse Beach. There are some couples far off at the other end, but when I see a family and two kids getting out of the car, I walk down the stairs to the sand.
“Sarah?”
I don’t look back, but Andrew’s familiar footsteps follow me onto the sand. I slip off my sandals and hold them in my hands. My toes crunch on seaweed when I finally make it to the shore.
The moon shines over the water even though the stars are just beginning to peek through the cobalt blue sky. Soon that blue will be gray, then black and all of the constellations will come out.
“It’s easy for you,” I say, dropping my gaze from the world above.
“What is?”
I cross my arms over my chest. Andrew’s frown is gone and instead, there’s interest in his eyes. This is the Andrew I know.
“Being you,” I say. “Being who you are. You know what you want to be. I don’t mean for a job, but on the inside. You know who you are. I